Although some significant details still have to be worked out, the University is preparing to embark on a massive program of building new undergraduate residences and dining facilities and renovating old ones. The project, expected to cost upwards of $200 million over the next decade, is intended to complement the programmatic changes that have accompanied the introduction of the college-house system.
If all goes according to plan, construction could begin
on several (anywhere from two to five) new “Hamilton Village”
college-house buildings in the Superblock area by the end of this year.
Tentatively scheduled to open in 2001, the residences are likely to be
three-to-five stories tall and will house a total of 1,000 students. In
addition, virtually every undergraduate residence and dining facility
will get some sort of face-lift, including a large-scale renovation of
the Quadrangle, scheduled to begin this year; the demolition of Stouffer
Triangle at 38th and Spruce Streets, followed by construction of a new
dining facility on the same site; and a major overhaul of the three high-rise
residences.
The project is “very, very long overdue from a
physical standpoint,” said John Fry, Penn’s executive vice president,
“and it’s a highly desirable thing from a competitive standpoint.
We absolutely need to have first-class residences in order to continue
to compete — as well as first-class dining facilities.”
“I think it’s the single most significant thing
that Penn can do to support undergraduate education,” said Dr. David
Brownlee, the professor of art history who serves as director of the Office
of College Houses and Academic Services. “We at the University must
always be innovative in curriculum, must always seek the best students
and faculty we can find — those are ongoing responsibilities. But at
this moment, we have a perhaps unique opportunity to change the circumstances
in which we do all of that necessary work.”
Penn administrators believe that by the time all the
new construction and rehabilitation is finished, the capacity of campus
residences will have increased by some 870 beds, to a total of 6,170.
That increase, and the consequent drop in undergraduates living off-campus,
will undoubtedly please many residents of University City, since undergraduates
do not always make the best neighbors. And since Penn recently purchased
36 buildings containing 200 rental units from a local realtor — many
of which will be fixed up and made available to faculty and staff — the
University is offering further proof that it is serious about improving
the neighborhood.
In building the new residences, Penn hopes to “bring
the vocabulary of Locust Walk across the bridge to 40th Street,”
said Fry, who added that he hoped to “capture the essence of that
36th-to-38th Street piece of Locust Walk, and — through planting, through
public art, through street furniture, through different types of materials
for pavers — to create some of that warmth that you feel from 36th to
38th Street.” Ironically, one of the goals is to make the Superblock
area more “village-like” — as it was before Penn demolished
the Victorian houses there in the 1960s to make room for the high-rises.
Although the new buildings will have a very different
feel from the high-rises that will tower above them, the objectives “are
the same across the board,” said Brownlee. “All college houses
will have the facilities to support student activities and academic support”
— including study space, computer labs, dining rooms, seminar rooms,
house-office suites, and “pleasant general assembly areas.”
Necessity being the mother of invention, he added, “we have variety
— and must make use of it creatively.”
From an architectural standpoint, said Fry, tearing
down Stouffer and putting a new, better- designed facility in its place
will “show more of the Quad behind it, which is one of our most wonderful
pieces of work.” (But the announced demolition of Stouffer sparked
complaints by some current residents.)
“The most important task before Penn officials
now is to design a long-term system of consultation that takes student
and community voices into account,” stated The Daily Pennsylvanian
in an editorial titled “Changing the face of campus.” “As
students will be the ones who ultimately decide whether the plan succeeds
or fails, their needs and ideas should be at the forefront of administrators’
minds.”
Students — as well as members of the faculty and staff
— have already been named to three consultative committees (for Hamilton
Village, the Quad, and Hill College House) by the Office of College Houses
and Academic Services and the Department of Housing and Conference Services;
their work will support that of the Capital Projects Steering Committee.
Ironically, it was partly the result of student input to a survey taken
in the late 1960s that the high-rises were built in the first place.
“That’s what’s sad,” said Brownlee, “but
what people generally don’t acknowledge is that the high-rises are actually
quite popular. There’s not an occupancy problem with them. So that doesn’t
prove that asking students for their input is wrong. It just proves that
you need to ask more than one question … Student consultation is going
to be very, very visible throughout this campaign.
“This can only be done if we acknowledge that it
is a large project,” he added. “If we say, ‘We’ll do a little
bit here, a little bit there,’ we’ll never do the whole thing.”
“This is a multi-hundred- million-dollar investment,”
said Fry, “and it’s going to be made over a substantial period of
time. We’re not talking about spending upwards of $200 million in three
years. This is something that has to be done within the context of the
University’s financial capacity.”
